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The IMDb Troll Wars
The IMDb Troll Wars was a series of trolling-related conflicts and drama that began and ended on IMDb. It had its roots in the "Weintraub saga" on the SM3 board, but really took off with the rise of the Troll Kingpin and his TKPS. The drama spanned several boards including the Spider-Man 3 board, the "The Dark Knight" board, the Pirates of the Caribbean 3 board, several Harry Potter boards, and the Eragon board. The Beginnings The exact beginnings of the Troll Wars are up for debate, with some pointing out Thomas Weintraub and others yet claiming that it didn't really begin until the name TKPS was created. The most accepted version is that it began with the arrival of the Troll Kingpin. Unbeknownst to the boards at the time, the Kingpin was secretely the alter ego of Mercuzo, an old reg on the SM3 board who decided to take up the empty throne left behind by Weintraub and usher in a "new era" of trolling. Due in part to the Kingpin's flamobyant, Weintraub-aping personality, most users didn't take him or his threats very seriously at first. The Kingpin began recruiting trolls from all over the site, including the infamous Johnny_20, kathie, m_argentile, Childrens_Tylenol, WRAITH, some old holdovers from his days with SMIAN, and lastly, Dr. Raymond Borin, the harbinger of Doctor Weintraub. The return of the doctors worked tremendously to the Kingpin's favor, as he had "prophesized" the event for weeks with no one believing him. Many trolls were astounded by the Kingpin's seemingly prophetic abilities and his organization was taken seriously at last as a legitimate threat to the board's harmony. For months without end, the Kingpin ordered spam attacks, thread hijackings, and other acts of trolling on the board, causing much chaos and discontentment. The doctors aided in the effort by going on nightly blitzkriegs, posting "from the lab cafeteria" while "drunk on beer". The famous troll slayer Pip attempted to expose the Kingpin and Weintraub's identities numerous times, to little success. At one point, Pip himself was theorized to secretely be the Kingpin, as the Kingpin often lavished all kinds of praises on his arch-nemesis. Others suggested simply ignoring the trolls, but these efforts were hampered by the constant account-changing, spamming, and the works of well-intentioned anti-trolls who exacerbated the situation by trying to "fight back" against the trolls. The Kingpin eventually grew bored of the SM3 board and decided to move on to the POTC3 board, which was a major rival to the SM3 board at the time. The Second Phase With Borin and Weintraub now dropped from the organization, the Kingpin found himself looking for new allies on the board. His early trolling efforts were resisted very well by the POTC3 posters, who were generally more organized and mature than the SM3 regs. In addition, the POTC3 regs were backed up by the leadership of Mcjs and Flapjack. Nevertheless, the Kingpin refused to surrender and expanded his reach to the Eragon boards, where he encountered the long-time anti-troll nuisance andrewmt, and returned to the SM3 board to muster up his forces once more while constantly attacking POTC3 whenever he could. The Kingpin used the rivalry to his advantage, painting his anti-POTC3 troll attacks as heroic attempts to place his home, SM3, over the charlatans. The ruse worked, and he was joined by a sudden influx of numerous talented trolling minds including Allseeing-Eye, TheLegendLives, Cacophony, LivingInShadows, and even his old nemesis, the Great Monarch. POTC3 was invaded during the winter in a massive blitzkrieg assault that not even Mcjs could stop. The Eragon boards and "The Dark Knight" boards were also conquered thoroughly, despite anti-troll resistors on both boards. This 2006 Christmas massacre represented the Kingpin's greatest success and finally moved the IMDb administration to take charge. The IMDb verification policy was put in place. The policy demanded that anyone attempting to register on the site give either a credit card number of answer a cellphone text message from IMDb, to insure that trolls would no longer be abel to create 50 different puppet accounts for the sole purpose of mass spamming and troll invasions. The policy wasn't defeated until the Weintraub method was created, but as the method wasn't revealed to the trolling public until Borin began the New TKPS, it effectively shut down all TKPS operations on IMDb. Aftermath The Troll Wars left quite a legacy on all of IMDb, even on forums that weren't directly affected. It is known that Scott and the users of "The War Room" were fully aware of TKPS's existence and activites for some time, even though they weren't discovered by the TKPS until long after the war ended and the TKPS never attacked any Star Wars boards. Also, the aforementioned verification policy is still in place on IMDb, which may have resulted in a thinning number of users in recent years. The war also created a tighter sense of bond and kinship among the users on the attacked forums and over time, even the trolls and regs came to respect one another. This harmony would come to form the basis of the KOT forum and eventually, FWNN.